{"id":2027,"date":"2021-12-14T18:38:18","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T18:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2027"},"modified":"2021-12-14T18:38:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T18:38:22","slug":"christmas-trombone-by-raymond-e-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2027","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Trombone by Raymond E. Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christmas Trombone<\/em><\/strong> by Raymond E. Banks (F&SF<\/em>, January 1954) is set in a future world where Venusian creatures called \u201csinging cones\u201d can curate and produce \u201cwafer thin discs of Venusian heavy water\u201d which store perfect musical recordings. The story\u2019s main character, Shorty, is an ex-musician who was put out of work by the cones, and the tale begins with him grabbing his trombone from the cupboard and going down to the church on Christmas Eve. On his way there, the chief of police, who has previously warned Shorty about playing in public (\u201cdisturbing the peace\u201d in this new musical world), confiscates the instrument.
Shorty continues on to the church to exchange gifts with the clergyman, Dr Blaine, who asks if he will be coming to the service. Shorty tells him no, as Blaine has a singing cone to provide music:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Blaine took him by the arm and led him into the nave.
Across from them rested the only true singing cone in Blessington. It was almost eight feet high, a tapering mound of pure whiteness, just as it had been on Venus. It \u201clived\u201d on sound, not talking voices, not explosions or discords. It \u201clived\u201d on music adding every sweet sound it heard to its repertoire until all its water was solidified and it could no longer hear and remember.
[. . .]
\u201cHere,\u201d said Dr. Blaine, \u201cI\u2019ve got all the great artists who ever recorded Christmas music, Shorty. The best voices, the best arrangements.\u201d
\u201cI know.\u201d
\u201cPeople need the solemn pageantry of the greatest church music to find the Christmas spirit in these commercial times.\u201d
\u201cYeah.\u201d
\u201cThis cone was a foot-high mound on Venus the night Christ was born in Bethlehem, Shorty. It\u2019s been on earth now for twenty years, adding only the purest and best church music to its being.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s only been in Blessington five years,\u201d said Shorty, \u201cwhile I been here 45, man, boy and molecule.\u201d
Dr. Blaine sighed. \u201cNobody wants the old choir and organ anymore, Shorty. When the cone plays we go back along the centuries to Bethlehem, we watch the miracles beside the Red Sea, we are in the room where the Last Supper was served and we walk with Christ up that final hill\u2014\u201d
\u201cA couple of times I got \u2019em pretty excited with that old organ you got stashed in the basement.\u201d
\u201cThen play for the cone, Shorty,\u201d said Dr. Blaine. \u201cPlay for the cone and make it hear and remember your notes alone with the world\u2019s best musicians.\u201d\u00a0 pp. 120-121<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Shorty doesn\u2019t engage, and tells Blaine his air car needs a new rotor blade (Shorty now works as a mechanic).
The next part of the story sees Shorty arguing with his wife Edith, who tells him he needs to move on, and stop being so bitter about the fact that he has been replaced by the cones. Shorty angrily leaves the apartment and goes to the police station where, after some chit-chat with the desk cop, he slugs him and retrieves his trombone.
The last scene (spoiler) sees Shorty go up a hill near the town and play his trombone, a few notes of Joy to the World<\/em>. Then he hears the cone at the church play a few of his notes back to him. Shorty starts playing Silent Night<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cone was silent, listening. He could feel its presence in the background. A moment before it had been scouring out the valley with its sound. Now it was comparing his notes with all the wonderful music stored in its memory.
Softly, you son-of-a-bitch, he told himself. This is final. Shorty, by God, now we\u2019ve got to do the thing!
For 45 seconds he reached the great plane of art that he\u2019d been trying to reach all his life. For 45 seconds he made music that no human or nonhuman agency had ever made before or would ever make again. It was one of those moments. It was clear and clean, human but not gooey. It was one tiny notch more than satisfactory.\u00a0 pp. 124-125<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After Shorty has finished and listens to the cone playing his music back to him, he realises that, after comparing his performance to everything it has stored, the cone has changed nothing (\u201cIn Bethlehem, on Venus and beyond to outer space it was a thing of perfect uniqueness.\u201d)
Shorty, finally at peace with himself, throws his horn away.
The story\u2019s cone gimmick is a little artificial (and confusing to begin with) but the last scene is very good, and the story\u2019s arc of a troubled soul finding solace works well in this Christmas tale. One for the \u2018Best of the Year\u2019 lists, perhaps.
***+ (Good to Very Good). 3,900 words. Story link<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas Trombone by Raymond E. Banks (F&SF, January 1954) is set in a future world where Venusian creatures called \u201csinging cones\u201d can curate and produce \u201cwafer thin discs of Venusian heavy water\u201d which store perfect musical recordings. The story\u2019s main character, Shorty, is an ex-musician who was put out of work by the cones, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[246,217,427,542,25,559,557,12],"class_list":["post-2027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-raymond-e-banks","tag-246","tag-3-5","tag-aliens","tag-christmas","tag-fsf","tag-music","tag-raymond-e-banks","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2027"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2038,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}